Project Vietnam
Football betting could be legal in Vietnam by mid 2007, according to local media reports. Huynh Vinh Ai, vice chairman of the Committee for Sports and Physical Training, told local media that a law he is drafting to legalize betting could bring in at least VND5 trillion (US$313.5 million)--an amount equal to the turnover of the country's national lottery. Ai said the bill will be sent to the government before the end of September. Meanwhile, five foreign bookmakers--Singapore Pools, Ladbrokes, bwin, INTRALOT and Vietnamese company SMS--are waiting on the green light from the Vietnamese government.
EC Casts an even Wider Net on Article 49 Violators
The European Commission is examining at least eight more countries whose laws may violate Article 49 of the EC Treaty, which guarantees the free movement of services. The Commission sent letters in April to Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden, asking them to respond to numerous bookmakers' complaints of national protectionism in their online gambling regimes. The Commission will announce on Oct. 18 its decision on whether to take these seven countries to court, and it has widened the investigation after receiving further complaints. AFX reported last week that France will be among the new additions to the list of member states under investigation. The announcement came after the co-CEOs of Austrian bookmaker bwin, Manfred Bodner and Norbert Teufelberger, were detained by French authorities for their alleged contravention of domestic gaming laws. Each was released Monday on 300,000 euros bail.
Crackdown in Korea
South Korea's prime minister has apologized for allowing video gambling arcades to proliferate in a country where gaming is mostly illegal. "I would like to offer my sincere apologies for the serious damage to the livelihood of low-income earners by the nationwide spread of speculative gaming," Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook said before a cabinet meeting on Aug. 29. The apology followed a public outcry demanding the government curb gambling. Han recently ordered the closure of thousands of video game parlors suspected of illegal gambling, and prosecutors began an investigation. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun added his apology on Aug. 31. "I feel deeply sorry for making the people concerned about the unfolding video game scandal. I would like to offer my sincere apologies," said the president in an interview with KBS TV.
Shortly after the apologies, the South Korea government announced it is cracking down on citizens who have set up Internet gambling Web sites overseas to circumvent local gambling laws prohibiting betting. The Information and Communication Ministry said that it blocked domestic access to 53 overseas gambling sites in the first week of September. A total of 181 overseas gambling sites have been blocked since the start of the year.
Crackdown in Turkey
In an effort to ban online gambling in Turkey, the Turkish National Lottery Administration recently submitted documents of an unidentified online gambling company to inspectors, who detected the base location of the company's Web site and demanded it be shut down. The Lottery Administration's general manager, Ihya Balak, has said they have detected 30 more Web sites and will bring legal suits against all of them.
Mulling Sweden's Monopoly
The Christian Democrats, the smallest of the four Alliance parties in Sweden, have changed their position on the country's gaming monopoly; The party is now saying it is open to the idea of allowing foreign competition into the country. Both the Moderates and the Liberal Party are in favor of doing away with the monopoly, while the Centre Party has been opposed to it.
Mats Odell, economic spokesman for the Christian Democrats, said the disagreement between the parties could be worked out by deregulation of the market.
"The most important thing is that there is protection for those who end up addicted to gaming," Odell told local media. "If resources can be committed to rehabilitation and giving a helping hand to those who ruined themselves and their families and if we hold this under control so that the damages are minimized."